Chapter 1

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have
supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character
of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were
all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being
neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name
was Richardd—and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable
independence besides two good livingsw—and he was not in the least
addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful
plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a
good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and
instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might
expect, she still lived on—lived to have six children more—to see them
growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family
of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are
heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had
little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and
Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin
awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong
features—so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism
seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred
cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of
infancy, nursing a dormousew, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a
rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered
flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief—at least
so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was
forbidden to take. Such were her propensities—her abilities were quite
as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything
before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often
inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in
teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her
next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine
was always stupid—by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and
Many Friends"h as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her
to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was
very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinnetw; so, at eight
years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs.
Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in
spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which
dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life.
Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain
the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd
piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses
and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing
and accountsw she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her
proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in
both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character!—for
with all these symptoms of profligacyw at ten years old, she had neither
a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever
quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions
of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and
cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house.

Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were mending;
she began to curl her hairh and long for balls; her complexion improved,
her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more
animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave way to
an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smartw; she had
now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark
on her personal improvement. "Catherine grows quite a good-looking
girl—she is almost pretty today," were words which caught her ears now
and then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look almost pretty is an
acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the
first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever
receive.

For students, teachers, scholars, and the inquisitive general reader:To employ the full capacity of the annotations, please go to bookdoors.com and click on ReSearch Engine. You will discover a variety of illuminating ways to use the annotations to this and to any one of the other BookDoors In Context editions. You will also be able to search the text of all of the other works on the site. …

Austen plays with the name, which dooms the holder to ineptitude or worse.

A "Richard" appears in Persuasion, a dead scapegrace of a son. He had been mercifully forgotten, but through a common acquaintance his mother reinvents her son, who now occasions an effusion of maternal grief. Austen comments that in his case "the abbreviation of his name" to Dick is appropriate, since "he had never done any thing to entitle himself to more...living or dead."

He is independently wealthy and in addition has two clerical livings to award or sell to a rector (depending on the living) or vicar as appointments for life, or install a curate, who will occupy it until he finds something better.

If he appoints a curate, the Rev. Morland, who does have ten children, will keep the difference between what the living yields (determined by tax rates and the parish's wealth) and what he pays the curate. The difference could amount to more than £200 or even £300. (Search)

A hare was very popular with the other beasts who all claimed to be her friends. But one day she heard the hounds approaching and hoped to escape them by the aid of her many Friends. So, she went to the horse, and asked him to carry her away from the hounds on his back. But he declined, stating that he had important work to do f…